OCEAN MARGINS PROGRAM DESCRIPTION 



The Department of Energy (DOE) has traditionally supported long-term interdisciplinary 

 studies on the structure and function of coastal ocean systems as part of its concern for 

 sustainable development and the dispersal and fate of energy-related materials (including CO2) 

 in the marine environment. The approach has been to conduct regional studies along the U.S. 

 continental shelves, utilizing moored instrumentation, ship sampling, and remote sensing to 

 measure watermass movements; spatial and temporal concentrations of chemical species and 

 particles; biological productivity; zooplankton grazing and bacterial respiration; ecological 

 dynamics; and biogeochemical fluxes of organic particles, nutrients, and dissolved organic 

 carbon between estuarine systems, the shelf, and the interior ocean. 



During FY 1992, the DOE restructured its regional coastal-ocean programs into a new 

 Ocean Margins Program (OMP), to: 



Quantify the ecological and biogeochemical processes and mechanisms that affect the 

 cycling, flux, and storage of carbon and other biogenic elements at the land/ocean 

 interface; 



Define ocean-margin sources and sinks in global biogeochemical cycles, and; 



Determine whether continental shelves are quantitatively significant in removing carbon 

 dioxide from the atmosphere and isolating it via burial in sediments or export to the 

 interior ocean. 



To achieve these objectives, the DOE has supported both process-oriented research to 

 understand the physical, biogeochemical, plant, animal, and microbial mechanisms and 

 interactions that affect the input, assimilation, and transformation of carbon in coastal waters 

 and sediments; and the development of new instrumentation to obtain high frequency in-situ 

 measurements of the environmental and biological factors affecting carbon fluxes in the ocean. 



During FY 1993, the DOE launched a new molecular biology initiative within its Ocean 

 Margins Program to provide a mechanistic understanding of the complex biological processes 

 which mediate the carbon cycle in marine systems. Molecular biological techniques are being 

 developed, adapted, and applied to determine how biological processes are regulated and 

 controlled by genetic limitations and environmental variables. Research emphasis has been 

 placed on 



(i) molecular regulation of photosynthetic carbon reduction by phytoplankton, 



(ii) molecular diagnostic markers of bacterial growth, production, and nutrient 

 limitations to growth, and (iii) molecular techniques for elucidating metabolic 

 pathways. 



